


Jane Austen, Law & Order, and Dave Matthews

by Brinny



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Future Fic, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 23:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6774373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brinny/pseuds/Brinny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie makes plans. She’s a planner. </p>
<p>What she doesn’t plan on, however, is peeing on a stick to see if she’s really five weeks pregnant, boyfriendless, and stuck in a crappy apartment until she can afford a place that isn’t above a laundromat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jane Austen, Law & Order, and Dave Matthews

**Author's Note:**

> This was half-written FOREVER ago and I figured that Mother's Day weekend would be a good time to dust it off and finish it up. It probably doesn't fit in with where Community left off (I haven't watched the Yahoo season, so...), but maybe it does? Eh. Enjoy!

_five weeks, three days._

Annie makes plans. She’s a planner.

She has two datebooks; an electronic one and one with, like, actual pages that you have to write in. (And maybe she color-codes everything in purple, pink, and blue ink. But a lot of people color-code. There’s probably even a section for it at _Staples_. It’s a thing. Seriously, ask around.)

She also has a calendar pinned to a wall in her apartment, covered with post-it notes and appointments and stuff written in neat-little-grid-lined-boxes. Of course the calendar also has big, glossy photographs of puppies and kittens sitting in wicker baskets and playing in fields of flowers, so it’s arguable that it’s dual purpose. With the second purpose being _adorable_.

But it’s not like she’s obsessive or whatever. Really, she’s not. She just likes to be organized and, you know, on top of things.

What she doesn’t plan on, however, is peeing on a stick to see if she’s really five weeks pregnant, boyfriendless, and stuck in a crappy apartment until she can afford a place that isn’t above a laundromat. (And, okay, everything always smells like fabric softener, which, yeah, is kind of awesome. But still.)

As she pees, Annie thinks two things: One, that it’s absolutely absurd to think that she would literally plan on this; like, she would type up or write down (in purple or pink or blue ink), _8:23 am, sit on toilet and pee on a plastic stick_. And two, that the stick peeing really has nothing to do with the non-existent boyfriend or her crappy apartment, because both of those things are already fact and she’s pretty sure that no amount of urine is going to change either of them. At least not for the better, anyway. Also? Eww. 

She finishes, washes her hands, and then sits on the closed toilet seat and looks at her watch. She also pushes the bathroom door open with her foot, just a crack, so she can see the clock on the wall, in case her watch is slow. (Honestly, she prefers if you’d call her _cautious_ instead of _crazy_ , thanks.)

She taps her shoe on the tiled floor.

“One minute and fifty-eight seconds, one minute and fifty-nine seconds, two minutes. Okay.”

Annie turns the pregnancy test over and sees a faint, but unmistakable, set of two lines staring back at her. She throws the stick in the trash, grabs another one and does the whole thing over again.

After the fourth time with the same results, she picks up her phone and, with shaky fingers, punches in a text to Jeff. 

_Hey. Need to talk to you. Important._

_five weeks, four days_

Annie thinks of Jeff’s apartment like an art gallery. It’s cold and the walls are painted grey and the whole place is decorated with large black and white photographs and glass furniture. It’s kind of pretentious, but welcoming. Not unlike its owner, she muses.

She fidgets the entire elevator ride up, picking at the buttons on her cardigan and pulling on the hem of her skirt and making lists in her head that she’ll write down (or type up) later:

_reorganize closet_  
_clean out refrigerator  
_ _call the super about leaky faucet in kitchen_

and

_apple juice_  
_toilet paper_  
_granola bars_  
_blueberries_  
_yogurt  
_ _band-aids_

and

_tell Jeff about being pregnant_  
_freak out about telling Jeff about being pregnant_  
_make doctor’s appointment about being pregnant_  
_buy books about being pregnant?  
_ _definitely buy books about being pregnant_

She keeps going until she thinks that the word _pregnant_ doesn’t sound like a word at all. 

When the elevator doors open, she tries it out loud, “Pregnant.” It falls off of her tongue awkwardly, so as she steps into the hall, she gives it another go. “I’m pregnant.” 

She’s about to give the word just one more chance, you know, to redeem itself or whatever, when Jeff opens the door and lifts an eyebrow at the sight of her in the hallway, her mouth open and her fingers frantically tugging at her clothes. He leans against the doorframe, folds his arms over his chest, crosses his legs at the ankle, and basically paints a perfect picture of nonchalance in his picture perfect nonchalant Jeff Winger way. 

“Annie.”

She swallows, smiles, pushes her hands together in a tight fist and says, “Jeff, hi.”

He invites her in and, for the first time, she’s thankful that his place is always art gallery cold. It used to bother her when she’d spend the night and have to pull borrowed shirts further down her thighs because she’d be covered in goosebumps or walk around the halls with mugs of hot tea to warm her hands. But now, when she thinks about why she’s here, her chest flushes with heat and her palms go sweaty and she can feel her cheeks starting to burn pink and, yes, she’s thankful for the cold.

Someone, she doesn’t know who, exactly, delivers flowers every other week and today a large vase of peonies and hydrangeas sit on a table beside the sofa in Jeff’s living room. Next to the flowers, Annie notices a small silver-framed photograph of her and Jeff and she wonders how it escaped being packed away in a box with all the others that used to decorate the space. She touches a finger to the corner of the frame and she wants to ask, but Jeff comes up behind her and flips the photograph face down on the table.

“So, you wanted to talk?”

Nodding, she puts on a serious face. “Yes. I did.”

“About?” he prompts.

Annie opens her mouth, then closes it. She can’t do this. They broke up. Like really broke up. And there were, like, real actual _reasons_ that they broke up. Maybe she can’t think of them right now (other than a sort of nagging feeling that _Law & Order_ somehow, possibly, played a part in it), but she knows that they’re there.

(And it’s not like that time where they had a really bad fight in middle of some restaurant and they both yelled and screamed and said that it was over and that they were done and then neither of them even made it out of the parking lot before they were apologizing and having make-up sex in Jeff’s car. Not like that at all. Or whatever, maybe it’s a little like that, but it still doesn’t change the fact they’re really, really broken up.)

There is just absolutely no way that she can do this in person. She’s too cowardly to tell him face to face. Not when he’s looking at her like that, all curious and, maybe, even a little bit concerned. Maybe she could write it out. An email or a text might be too impersonal, but a handwritten letter would probably be okay, right? If she wrote it on decorative stationary, maybe?

“Annie?”

“Did I leave my copy of _Emma_ here?” she asks, and she has no idea where she’s going with this, but she takes a deep breath and keeps on, “Because I was re-alphabetizing my bookshelf yesterday and I noticed that there was a gap between _Mansfield Park_ and _Northanger Abbey_.”

“What?” Jeff asks. His forehead wrinkles in confusion. “Annie, what are you talking about?”

“Oh, I go alphabetically by the last name of the author and then organize their works chronologically by release date. So, you know, Austen-comma-Jane, and then _Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey,_ and _Persuasion_. And I’ve heard all the arguments that it’s not a practical way of shelving, but I think it’s a great way to show how a writer develops their craft over time, so I don’t really see what the big deal is.”

“Sure,” he says uneasily. And then there’s more forehead wrinkles. “Wait, I thought you said it was important.”

“It is,” she says.

“Uh-huh. I don’t think that you possibly, maybe, missing some book of early nineteenth-century literature is _really_ all that important.”

“She may not have been as highly respected in her time, but Jane Austen is a _very_ important literary figure, Jeff. _Emma_ is an absolute classic.” She knows that she sounds sort of frantic, voice high and strained, but she can’t stop herself. Words just keep coming out of her mouth. “And that’s not even touching on the fact that Ms. Austen’s writing has spurred an almost uncountable amount of adaptations. Television, films, satirical novels. Um, like everything that the BBC produces. So, yeah. Important.” 

“Annie, what’s going on?”

“What? Nothing. Nothing is going on.”

“Annie, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just minus one classic novel.” 

Jeff’s face softens and he says, “Annie?” so sweetly that she just caves.

“I’m pregnant.”

Wow. Jeff Winger must be _awesome_ in the courtroom.

Annie looks at him, waits for a reaction, and Jeff looks back at her, waits for _something_. (Like maybe, “Ha ha. Kidding!” Except it never comes.) He frowns and rubs a hand along the back of his neck and up around his chin, covering his mouth with his palm. And she can’t tell if he’s shocked or upset or excited or mad or happy or any other sort of anything that he should be after an ex-girlfriend goes on a random, crazy Austen rant and then blurts out that she’s pregnant.

“I’m going to go get a bottle of water,” he says, sound of his voice muffled by his hand. “Do you want a bottle of water?”

He quickly leaves the room just as she starts to squeak out, “Okay, sure”, and returns by the time she’s finished.

Handing her a bottle, he uncaps one for himself and drinks. Annie stares at the smooth line of his throat as he swallows, his adam’s apple bobbing slowly. It’s Saturday, so he didn’t bother shaving, and both his cheeks and the underside of his chin are covered in the sort of scratchy stubble that Annie remembers tickling her nose and scraping low along her belly when they spent lazy mornings in bed. And she feels her chest kind of tighten as she thinks about how much she misses all of it. How she misses all of him.

Jeff wipes his mouth with the neck of his shirt, leaving behind a small wet patch of water on the grey cotton.

“So,” he says.

Annie twists and untwists the cap on her bottle of water. She doesn’t know what to say to “So.” But she figures that’s okay, because Jeff didn’t know what to say to “I’m pregnant.” Not that those are remotely the same.

“Pregnant, huh?”

She tries not to sigh, but it comes out as soon as she opens her mouth, so she just nods.

“How pregnant?”

“Um. A lot pregnant?” she answers, because she’s pretty sure that you’re either pregnant or you’re not. (And she has a brief and fleeting and very Britta-like thought of, _there’s not like, varying degrees of pregnancy, are there?_ Oh, she’s totally going to have to buy books.)

“No. How many months? Or days? Is it days?”

“Weeks,” she says.

“Okay, weeks. How many weeks?”

“About five, I think? Well, it’s five, give or take a few days. I haven’t even gone to the doctor yet, but I took the test and I thought you should know.” She frowns, unsure. “You wanted to know, right? I mean, I know we broke up, but I figured that you’d want to know.”

“Annie,” he says, soft. “We broke up like a month ago.”

She gives an easy shrug, pushing her fingers into the sides of the water bottle until the plastic makes a loud crunching sort of sound. “Yeah. Five weeks ago.”

“Right,” he confirms. And he gets it, but he still repeats, “Five weeks ago.”

So, here’s the deal:

When they broke up, they kind of had some really awesome break-up sex. And even though they’re both totally responsible adults (and maybe Annie more so than Jeff, but still), it’s entirely possible that they didn’t use a condom. And maybe Annie should have remembered that, even when used correctly, birth control pills are only 99.9 percent effective. But they were breaking up and it was really, really sad, okay? Jeff even cried.

“So, what was all that stuff about Jane Austen?” he asks.

“I was afraid to tell you?” she says, and it sounds way too much like a question. “I don’t know. It’s just, I’m Annie. I plan everything and I’m organized. I’m on top of things. 

“Annie, trust me, you were totally on top of things that night. In some ways, literally.”

“Jeff, this is not funny,” she tells him, even though it makes her smile.

“No, I know,” he says.

She moves to sit on the sofa and he sits beside her; water bottles left on the coffee table. He reaches for her hand, but misses, so he just lets the backs of his knuckles rest against the outside of her leg.

“So, what’s the plan, kiddo?”

“I don’t know,” she says. She takes a breath. “I don’t have a plan. Like, ‘Hey, what would I do if my boyfriend knocked me up while he had me bent over the arm of his sofa during really orgasmic break-up sex?’ was not really the kind of thing that I thought was a possible scenario that I would need to make charts or graphs or Venn diagrams for.”

“Is it the breaking up thing that’s throwing you? You don’t want to, you know, get back together, do you?”

“What? Jeff, no.” She looks at him. “Why, do you?”

 He shakes his head and says, a little too incredulous, “What? No, of course not. A baby isn’t a reason to get back together.”

“No, it’s not,” Annie agrees with a decisive nod. Then softly, “Huh. A baby.”

And it’s not like Annie is stupid, because she’s whatever the complete and total opposite of what stupid is, but it kind of takes her this long to fully understand that pregnancy usually equals baby. Jeff seems to come to the same conclusion and a look of uncertainty settles on his face. He clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably.

“Uh, if there is a baby,” he says. “There doesn’t have to be a baby if you don’t want there to be a baby.”

“I don’t know if I want there to be a baby.” She thinks back to her list about buying pregnancy books. “I think I want there to be a baby. Do you want there to be a baby?” 

“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about babies. Other than sort abstractly, in the sense that people have them and they exist. And that they’re sort of like small, chubby people without teeth who can’t walk and cry a lot. Like really upset, fat, toothless midgets. If you could just keep one as a pet.”

“Yeah,” she says. And then when his words actually register, she turns to him and frowns, slaps a hand against his arm and reprimands, “Jeff.”

“What? That was an awesome analogy. C’mon, credit where it’s due, Annie.”

“Jeff,” she says again.

“Yeah, I know, I’ve been hanging out with Troy a lot.” He lifts an arm around her shoulders and pulls her into him. Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he says, “Don’t worry, okay? We’ll figure this out.” 

 

 

_eleven weeks, four days_

 

They don’t _exactly_ figure it out. Not just yet.

So far, Jeff just ends up tagging along to Annie’s doctor appointments (she sets reminders in his iPhone, because Jeff doesn’t even own a datebook, electronic or with pages) and then reprogramming his name in her cellphone directory to _Baby Daddy_.

“Really, Jeff?”

“If there’s an emergency,” he supplies, shrugging. He’s scrolling through the contacts in his own phone, now; changing _Annie_ to _Baby Mama_ , she guesses. “That way anyone can reach me.”

“So, it’s a practicality thing?” she asks. “Not for your own amusement?”

“Oh, no,” he says. He smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners, and hangs his arm across her shoulders. “It’s for that, too.”

Annie nudges at him with her hip, hard, and says, “Well, I’m changing it back. It sounds like something from an episode of Maury Povich. And I’m fairly certain that we are above Connie Chung’s talk-show husband, thank you very much.”

“But that’s part of its charm!” Jeff says, still smiling.

Annie shakes her head and firmly presses the button to select _edit_. Except that a slightly neurotic and possibly obsessive compulsive former pill-addict and a self-proclaimed narcissistic liar who defrauded the state into believing he was a lawyer having a baby together actually _does_ kind of sound like it could be fodder for Maury (or maybe it would if they were cousins), so she ends up just leaving it the way it is.

She fiddles with her phone a bit more, lets Jeff think that his name is back to its proper _Jeff Winger,_ and then texts Britta about getting together for lunch sometime next week, really hoping that she doesn’t suggest that Indian place across from her apartment, because Annie hasn’t been able to stomach the smell of curry for pretty much a month. And, really, just the thought of it makes her pancake breakfast threaten to come back up, and she has to press the backs of her knuckles to her mouth. You know, as a precautionary move.

“You okay?” Jeff asks.

Annie swallows, nods. “Curry moment.”

He kind of nods back, but says, “I really don’t know how to respond to that.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m fine,” she says, just as her phone buzzes with Britta’s message of, _Tandoori Grill?_ and her stomach turns again. She sighs. “I’ll just tell Britta I have the flu. Or something.”

“Yeah, that lecture she has about the declining population of sea turtles because of the evils of man makes me pretty nauseous, too.”

“No, I mean, because of the, you know,” she says, gesturing at her belly. She drops her voice to a hush and finishes, “Morning sickness.”

Jeff looks around the nearly empty street and only sees a line of cars up to the curb and a couple walking a dog. Leaning his head down closer to Annie’s, he asks, “Why are you whispering? Is that supposed to be a pregnancy secret or something?”

“Well, no. I guess not. But what are we going to tell people?”

“About what?”

Annie stops walking. Jeff takes a couple of more steps and then stumbles a bit, his watch catching along the collar of her shirt. He turns around, scrunching up his forehead in confusion, which, okay, is sort of adorable, but at the same time really, really frustrating, because Annie is a planner. She plans things. And she and Jeff haven’t planned anything. They haven’t even talked about it. Not really 

“Annie?” he asks.

“We are going to tell people, aren’t we? I mean, before I get to the proportionate size of a beached whale?”

“Well, yeah. Of course,” he answers. “Though I don’t really think that’s an accurate statement. Mostly because I’m pretty sure that whales are the same size regardless, you know beached or not, but also, I just don’t think you’re going to balloon up to six hundred pounds.”

“Jeff.”

“Oh, and maybe don’t mention the whole beached whale thing in front of Britta. Because if I have to hear one more time about how the irresponsible use of sonar by the military can cause hemorrhaging and then subsequent death in orcas, I’m warning you right now: I might have to kill her.”

“Jeff, I don’t think—”

“No, it’ll be okay. Troy and I worked out a defense a long time ago. I mean, it probably wouldn’t even go to a jury. And if it did, c’mon, would you put a face this pretty behind bars?”

“That depends. Does your defense heavily rely on video footage of Britta at last year’s World Peace protest?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Annie gives a shrug. “Then you’d have a pretty solid case.”

“Right?”

Jeff puts both hands on her waist, gives her a reassuring squeeze. It’s something that he used to do when they were dating and Annie moves into the touch, her knees bumping along his shins. (And she really shouldn’t, because, they’re _so_ broken up. But there is the whole having a baby together thing, so the rules are probably different. Aren’t they?) Jeff folds his hands at the small of her back, bends at his knees so he’s sort of at her eye level.

“And we can tell people whatever you want, whenever you want,” he says. “Deal?”

“Fine. Deal.”

 “Now, Ms. Edison, I feel that as your attorney I am obligated to inform you that you just entered into a legally binding contract.”

 She laughs, just a little. “Um, you know, I’m not sure it works that way. I’m also pretty sure that you’re not my attorney.”

 “Then, let it be known that through both my words and actions, I do verily believe that I was acting in your best interest,” he says with a small smile. And then, with his arms still around her, he swings her back and forth a bit. “Hey, I’m starving. Wanna grab some samosas?”

 Annie throws up on his shoes.

 

 

_fourteen weeks, six days_

 

Since Jeff doesn’t have a calendar anywhere in his apartment, Annie pulls hers off of her wall and hangs it up in his place. She fixes it to the fridge door with a handful of magnets (also hers) and then leafs through a copy of _What to Expect When You’re Expecting_ that she borrowed from Shirley and marks off weeks of baby milestones.

Jeff reads off Week 14. “The baby can hiccup. Really?” 

Annie sort of hums a ‘yes’ in response and fills in another week. Jeff gives an impressed nod, and then, “Can you feel it?”

 “Feel what?” she asks. “Oh, the hiccupping? No, not really. That comes later.”

 He puts a hand low on her stomach, and it’s awkward and weird for about a second until he smiles, big and wide, and says, “Huh.”

 

 

 

_seventeen weeks_

 

Jeff doesn’t want to know sex of the baby, so after her ultrasound appointment, Annie slowly slides her finger under the seal of the envelope and reads the results to herself. She’s quiet.

“Annie you okay?” Jeff asks.

 Annie gives a teary sort of smile and nods. “Yeah, I’m perfect.”

 And then she makes a quick list of things that she needs to buy for the nursery:

_crib_  
_sheets_  
_changing table_  
_mobile  
_ _rocking chair_

Oh, and: 

_teeny-tiny hangers to hang up teeny-tiny dresses_

because she’s totally having a girl.

 

 

_nineteen weeks, two days_

When Jeff reads on Annie’s puppies and kittens calendar that the baby can hear external sounds, he calls her at work and insists that she put the phone up to her stomach so he can talk to it. (She’d prefer if you called him _crazy_ instead of anything, thanks.)

Instead, she makes up a schedule (writes _Daddy/Baby Time_ in bright blue ink) and sits on Jeff’s sofa while he talks non-stop streams of nonsense; all one-sided conversations and 90s rock lyrics and soccer stats.

This week he’s in the middle of prepping for a trial, so he reads out rules and statutes and limitations.

“Evidence directly connecting an alternate suspect to the crime with which the defendant is charged is not required to render admissible evidence that an alternate suspect committed a similar offense where there is an issue as to the identity of the perpetrator and the defendant desires to present alternate suspect evidence that bears on the issue, rather than merely showing motive or opportunity.”

Annie settles further back into the cushions, flipping through an old issue of _Newsweek_ , and Jeff lifts her feet into his lap. Using his teeth, he uncaps a highlighter, and marks _People v. Muniz_ in bright yellow.

“It shall be _prima facie_ evidence that the conduct of the peace officer was performed in the reasonable good faith belief that it was proper if there is a showing that the evidence was obtained pursuant to and within the scope of a warrant, unless the warrant was obtained through intentional and material misrepresentation.” He sighs, mutters, “And that’s not entirely relevant. 

He reaches for a different set of papers, everything stacked in high and haphazard piles on the coffee table, and pages of Colorado case law fall to the floor. Jeff just digs through until he finds what he’s looking for, stopping to make notes as he goes along. A pen rolls off of the table and disappears in mess of discarded sheets ripped from a yellow legal notepad.

“Jeff,” Annie says, “don’t take this the wrong way, but your place is kind of a mess. Like, not actually messy.” Her shoulders move up in a small shrug and she says, “But like, maybe-I-wouldn’t-eat-off-of-the-floor-messy. You know, Jeff Winger messy.”

He doesn’t look up. “Annie, please tell me that you haven’t eaten anything off of the floor. Anywhere.”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Good. I just haven’t had a chance to, you know, keep things off of the floor. And I’ve been trying to work from home more, so I cancelled the cleaning service.”

“Why?”

“Because when Greta cleans, she sings Guatemalan folk songs, and that makes it hard to concentrate.” Annie’s mouth opens with another question and Jeff nods and says, “Yeah, I know. It’s messed up. She’s not even Guatemalan. Which, yes, I definitely found out by saying something culturally inappropriate. And quite possibly racist.”

“No, I meant why are you working from home more.”

“Well, you said you would stop by for, uh, baby time, and that wouldn’t really work if you came to my apartment and I was at the office.”

“Oh. Right.”

Using the tip of his thumb, Jeff flicks the cap on the highlighter open and closed. Annie listens to the satisfying _click, click, clack_ (tapping her fingers along the back of the sofa) and then, laying her magazine across the swell of her stomach, asks, “Do you remember why we broke up?”

“Yes.”

Annie shakes her head. “No.”

“I don’t?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow.

“No, I mean the reasons why we broke up.”

“Uh, let’s see,” he says. He shuffles through the papers in his hands, then sets them down and continues on, “You said I was becoming a workaholic who never spent any time with you. Possibly not untrue. And there was that little thing when I asked you to marry me and you had what Abed called a ‘classic role-reversal freak out’ and said that you didn’t think that you were ready for that kind of commitment.”

“Yeah, I guess—”

“Oh, and we fought. All the time.”

She frowns. “Not all the time.”

“Annie, every morning you would say that I took too long in the bathroom. When I suggested that maybe you should have gotten up earlier to use the bathroom first, you called me a vain asshole. I’m paraphrasing.”

Clearing her throat, Annie says, “I may have said that you were vain in a way that Carly Simon had yet to write a song about.”

Jeff gives an almost fond smile. “Yes, right. And I enjoy the fact that you had to Google Carly Simon _just_ to insult me. It was a nice touch. Showed effort.”

“And why couldn’t you have gotten up earlier?”

“Are we really going to do this now?”

“No.” 

“Good.”

“Anything else?” she asks. 

“Well, you don’t fast-forward through the commercials on PVR’d TV. Which, seriously, if you ask just about anyone, they’ll tell you that is just plain weird. Because, c’mon Annie, we have the technology. Man has evolved past commercials.”

“Aww, but I like that one with the talking dog. Where he’s wearing sunglasses and driving a car? And then he says, _Times is ‘ruff’ without proper insurance_.”

“That commercial is horrifying, Annie. And if our government had any sense they would play it on a loop to torture war criminals.”

“Okay, so it’s not exactly grammatically correct.” 

“Horrifying.”

“But that’s not really—”

“Also, your mom seemed to have a problem with the fact that I’m not Jewish, despite the fact that she, herself, married an Episcopalian. And even though you pointed this out to her on numerous occasions, she still disapproved. And you let it get to you. A lot.”

“It’s just so hypocritical,” she says, a little defensive, talking dog commercial forgotten. “It’s petty and it’s hypocritical. Petty, hypocritical and archaic. And hypocritical. Really, really hypocritical.” (Annie has quite a few of lists about her mom. _Hypocritical_ is on almost all of them.)

“And I’m guessing that you still haven’t worked out that it probably bothers you so much because some part of you will always have this insane need to please her even when you know she’s being completely unreasonable.”

“Okay. So, we fought a lot. But most of those other things weren’t really so bad, were they?”

“Well, it was that, plus we could never agree on which was the superior _Law & Order_. About covers it, right?”

Annie, somewhat uncertainly, says, “Right.” And then she adds, “And it’s _Criminal Intent_ , obviously.”

“See and you only think that because you were born the same year that the original premiered.”

“Yes, Jeff. It has nothing to do with Vincent D’Onofiro’s brilliant performance as the on-edge Detective Robert Goren. Please.”

“Wow, you know that’s a really good—Wait, no. You’re wrong.”

See, there were totally reasons for why they broke up. Real, actual reasons. (But maybe, mostly, the _Law & Order _thing.)

“Well,” Annie says, picking up her magazine, “I’m glad we had this discussion.”

Jeff gives a sort of confused nod and adds, “Me too?”

 

 

 

_twenty-four weeks, one day_

 

“Aww, the baby has tastebuds!”

“Oh, yeah?” Jeff says. Then, “Wait, what does it taste?”

Annie shrugs. “I don’t know. Amniotic fluid, I guess.” 

“Okay, if we are going to have sex again, ever, you can’t say things like _amniotic fluid_. Just—no.”

“Jeff,” she says, slow and careful, “why would we be having sex?”

“I’m just throwing it out there.”

“Yeah, well, you better put it back in there, mister.” A smirk starts on the corner of Jeff’s mouth, but before he can say anything, Annie cuts him off with a: “Eww, Jeff. Gross.”

 

 

_twenty-four weeks, one day (and a half)_

 

They totally have sex.

 

 

_twenty-four weeks, two days_

Twice. 

 

 

_thirty-two weeks, five days_

 

Annie makes a list of available two bedroom apartments (because all of the baby books and baby magazines and baby websites and, well, Shirley, say that the nursery should be done by now), but when she goes to look at each one, none of them seem quite right and she ends up making another list beside the old that reads:

_three-floor walkup – NO ELEVATOR_  
_only has westside facing windows_  
_too far from work_  
_too far from Jeff’s_  
_no dishwasher  
_ _landlord looks a lot like Pierce (like suspiciously a lot)_

(Okay, maybe she’s reaching on that last one.)

So, during a routine Saturday morning _Daddy/Baby Time_ , Annie decides to make a new list and sets herself up a little workstation on Jeff’s glass coffee table: Classifieds, notebook, real-estate listings, phone, pens, and half-crumpled up old list to remind her of what she’s _not_ looking for.

Jeff is fiddling with his iPod (he’s been having the baby listen to _Crash_ by Dave Matthews Band), when he gives a look towards her makeshift workstation.

“Setting up camp?” he asks, only mildly curious, as he presses ‘play’ and _So Much to Say_ softly hums out from the headphones that don’t quite cover Annie’s rounded belly.

She gives a decisive and determined nod and says, “Apartment hunting.” 

“What’s wrong with the apartment you have now?” 

“Jeff, I only took out a lease on that place so I could save some money while I found an actual, grown-up apartment. Which is what I’m doing right now.” 

Shrugging, he says, “You know you could have an actual, grown-up apartment if you moved in here.” 

“No. That would be your actual grown-up apartment. I need to do this on my own.”

“Just think about it,” he says.

Annie starts to make a quick mental list of pros and cons (that she’ll write down or type up later) when _Crash Into Me_ starts to quietly play through the headphones and it makes her think about when she did live here, how Jeff would have this album on repeat all of time. And she thinks about cooking dinner in the kitchen, sitting on the sofa and reading the newspaper on Sunday mornings, and lazily making out under the covers on rainy days. And, honestly, she misses all of that and she misses all of him and it really wouldn’t be the worst thing to have some of that back. Plus, you know, they are sort of having a baby together.

“I’ll think about it,” she decides. And because she doesn’t want him to know that she gave in so easily, she adds, “You do know that you only have two bedrooms, right?”

“So, you and the baby can share the spare one. It’s big enough.” And then he gives a smirk. “Or I can just make a really awesome blanket fort in the living room and you can each have your own bedroom.”

Annie smiles.

 

 

 

_thirty-nine weeks, six days_

When Annie first starts going into labor, she panics. They still don’t have it all figured out. Not just yet.

But when Jeff grabs her hand and says, “Okay, kiddo, let’s do this,” she forgets about datebooks, both electronic ones and ones with, like, actual pages that you have to write in, because there’s no way to literally plan for something like this. And maybe that’s okay.

 

 

_forty-weeks, three days_

 

“She needs a name.”

Jeff smiles, says, “How about Emma?”

“Emma Edison-Winger. Welcome to the world, baby girl.”

Annie makes plans. She’s a planner.

But even she couldn’t have planned something so perfect.

 

 

 

 


End file.
